This Match is Our Only Light
by Maestus
Summary: It started with a death. It always started with a death; at least everything important in Alfred's life did. And this time was no different - he did what he always did, temporarily revived the victim, and then sort of...forgot to let go. It's nothing major; he's just mildly in love with a corpse and it's complicated, okay?
1. Chapter 1

**Basically this is what happens when I watch a spree of Hannibal then stumble across Pushing Daisies, and combine inspiration with a desire for general angst and suffering. Crime-scene/police AU - warnings for major character death (sort of), crime scene descriptions and a serial killer.**

**Um, this chapter is mainly just exposition. Not beta-read.**

* * *

It started, as always, with a murder. Or rather, a disappearance.

It was the fourth one in the last two months, fitting the exact same MO as the last three disappearances. None of the other victims had been found alive: Alfred Jones didn't hold much hope for this one either.

He stood before a whiteboard currently buried under scores of scribbled information and pictures, facing a roomful of tense police officers. The majority of them had been on this case from the start: three confirmed victims and now a possible fourth. The media had labelled this particular killer the 'Artisan Killer' after photos of the crime scenes had been leaked to the tabloids. Like works of art, they had been described as; beauties to behold. With all due respect, they were a 'beauty' Alfred would rather not lay eyes on again.

"Our victim is male, early twenties, working as a librarian. He was last seen on Friday afternoon when he left work: his absence was only noticed when he failed to show up on Monday morning." His voice sounded more confident than he felt: already his mind was running through all the possible scenarios: throwing up the statistics, the likelihood that this man would turn up alive. It decreased with each passing minute. "The time scale is right, and he fits the victim profile, therefore we are treating this disappearance as suspicious. Vargas, Carriedo: I want you to look into friends and family, on the off chance this is unrelated to our _'Artisan' _killer. Beilschmidt, Vargas 1.2: you and the Scandic five are to scour the neighbourhood for clues, 'kay?-" he ignored the cry of "it's _Nordic!"_" I don't want a trashcan left unturned! The rest of you guys: divvy up between answering phones, and interviews. We are going to have a breakthrough this time: I can just feel it!"

Of course, it was all just a front: he felt no such thing. As he turned away, back to the board, all Alfred felt was a crushing sense of despair. He knew the statistics; they all knew the statistics – the fact remained that after 48 hours, the chances of finding your MisPer alive were slimmer than Gilbert's chances of getting into Rodrich's pants. And as he started at the images – not at all gruesome, as he was used – he wondered what artwork would be added to the collection this time. There was Ana Hooper, first victim; laid out on the floor of a church, her blood drained and used to daub the massive wings around her. Martin Gressling; sprawled over a bench with threads of shimmering silvers trailing from his arms, enough to create the impression of a fallen angel. Lastly, Maria Kellerman; laid to rest in a gown of silk. The wings this time were formed from swathes of satin.

That was their killer's MO: wings were apparently his symbol of choice. The victims all died from asphyxiation, strangled with just enough force to kill them but not damage them: death would have been reasonably peaceful. On top of that, sedatives had been found in their system: it was highly likely they hadn't even been aware of what was happening, therefore rendering Alfred's particular...gift useless. He hadn't even bothered with any of them. Each was then dressed by the killer, usually in expensive designer outfits, and their bruising covered by make-up. It was one of the few cases Alfred had found where the victims looked more beautiful dead than they had alive. Porcelain statues, displayed for all to see.

So they knew their killer had loved his or her victims in some way. But other than that, they had nothing: no common links between any of them other than that they lived in the same city. Different genders, different ages, different professions. They didn't even look similar: he had absolutely nothing to go on. And here was their fourth possible victim, yet again matching up in no department. Alfred studied the picture provided for identification contemplatively: it showed a slight male grinning awkwardly at the camera. Messy blond hair, wide green eyes obscured by reading glasses, and oh god, _that_ outfit. Baggy jumpers and corduroys were about 50 years out of date. So, stereotypical stuffy librarian then: probably drank tea and had a hang-up about the correct way to hold a fork. What was so special about him then? What was it that had attracted a notably _refined _killer? The only solid fact Alfred had on him was his name and even then, that wasn't of much help.

He hated this, hated not being able to help in any way other than to dash around trying to desperately coordinate a bunch of officers into something resembling a functional team. But this killer was about 15,000 steps ahead of them at all times: what could they do, other than keep trying?

There was a sudden commotion at the door: he looked over to see Elizaveta pushing her way past a gaggle of patrol-men, hand noticeable edging towards her truncheon (never mind Alfred, the chief himself had put his foot down on any pans - Elizaveta's weapon of choice - making it into the building) when they failed to get the hint. Maybe halfway across the room, she just gave up, stood in the centre and hollered.

"They've found a body!"

Silence fell. She gave a nod of recognition at the gesture and then continued. "Jogger found it about half an hour ago, alerted the local police who upon arriving on the scene, contacted us. It's the Artisan Killer."

"Is it...?" Alfred began, almost afraid to ask the question. Instead he gestured to the picture behind him –_ small-town librarian, probably a tea drinker, normally punctual: this sort of thing is out of character for him. He mostly keeps himself to himself, didn't seem to have many friends. Uh, family, I don't know...I __**think**__ there's a brother living in France?_

Elizaveta nodded once. It was the sort of nod that came from someone who was far too used to having to deliver bad news of some kind – lacking in any kind of emotion or sympathy beyond it's factual purpose.

"It's Arthur Kirkland. Sorry."

* * *

**Any con-crit or thoughts are appreciated. Next chapter should be up soonish.**


	2. Just Another Night

**I'm going to try and get some more of this written, hopefully get another chapter up by Sunday if possible. Once this holiday is over however, I'll probably be updating on a weekly basis. (providing I'm not drowning in a sea of sociology)**

**Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favourited or followed so far ^-^ This chapter has also not been beta-read so apologies for any mistakes.**

* * *

_This is just another night_  
_And we've had many of them_  
_To the morning we're cast out_  
_But I know I'll land here again_

Like all of the Artisan's murders, the scene before them was beautiful, a masterpiece some might say. It wasn't the usual brutal slapdash crime scene Alfred was used: everything was methodically planned, and laid out, fitting together like a jigsaw piece. He would almost be able to admire it, if it weren't for the fact that that care extended to any and all incriminating evidence. An Artisan murder meant no prints, no DNA, not even so much as a goddamn footprint. And he hated it, because it meant they had nothing.

Lovino approached him. His face was closed off, expression suggesting that anyone who spoke to him was going to receive at minimum a fist to the face, but he managed to shrug that apparent desire off long enough to explain the situation. "It's not him," he sighed, running a hand over day old stubble and looking anywhere but at Alfred's face. "It's a goddamn copycat."

Huh? That wasn't what he was expecting to hear. "But it fits! Snatched after work, at a time no one will notice he's missing, exact same wait between disappearance and dumping the body, the whole artistry or whatever you call it: it fits the profile! It's gotta be the Artisan. .." Because as he tailed off, the option that there was another killer out there, another killer mimicking the first killer, just wasn't one he wanted to contemplate. One killer was bad enough.

"Yeah, it looks like one, but there's details missing that haven't been released to the press. It follows the general style and that's all it has."

Without another word, Alfred pushed past Lovino: he had to see this for himself before they jumped to any conclusions. There must have been something they'd missed, some hidden detail that would give them some clue as to the killer's identity. And there was; it just wasn't what they were looking for. Lovino talked him through it.

The body of Arthur Kirkland lay arranged in classic funeral style, on a bed of delicate pink roses. Other than the wind having scattered a few flowers, the arrangement was largely untouched, and appeared to be classic Artisan. But it was like Lovino said; there were mistakes in the design, little hitches where there should have been uninterrupted flow. No wings: that was the first thing he picked up on. So the classic Artisan signature was missing; that was a major pointer right now. No effort had been made to conceal the victim's - Alfred had to term him the victim, else he'd never make it through with his sanity intact - wounds. They were all visible to the naked eye - thick bruising around the throat, a nasty head wound, blood streaked around the fingernails... Wait a moment.

Okay, it wasn't the Artisan but they were going to catch this one: they were sloppy, whoever they were. He could see several other officers had already noticed what was bound to be DNS evidence and whilst the atmosphere was not quite excitement, there was a definite air of expectation. Alfred could live with this.

As long as they caught this copycat and no one else died, he could live with this.

Looking around thought, it didn't appear there was all that much left for him to do, nothing that others weren't capable of doing or hadn't already done. They didn't really require his help here: the cause of death was all too clear, and yes, he did hold a major in forensics but it wasn't really his specialty or even what he was in this job for. This was just another run-of-the-mill murder scene: prints, DNA, possible motive.

Somehow, that little fact was even more disheartening than the knowledge that there was yet another killer out there for them to contend with. Alfred didn't like the thought of victims becoming less important than others on the basis of their circumstances but the fact remained, when dealing with two cases, one high profile and one a spin-off of sorts, it didn't take a genius to guess which would receive the most attention.

Even if this was, as he said, a spin off. Even if all current evidence appeared to point to a quick conviction. The justice system wasn't as just as he would like.

Although, it could be argued that technically, this Kirkland guy was another victim of the Artisan: his killer had been inspired by the serial killer; therefore the Artisan had killed him indirectly, right?

...Fuck, this theoretical blame schmooze made his brain hurt.

Giving up on police politics for the time being, Alfred decided he'd have to take a quick nosy of his own at the body at some point. Forget all this detective work and assumption; _bodies _were his specialty. Bodies spoke to him. No, you don't understand: they actually sat up and spoke to him. He'd demonstrate but forensics would probably rip him a new one for contaminating their crime scene. Besides, not too many people actually knew what he could do and he'd like to keep it that way, thanks.

It was necromancy he guessed. He didn't know what else to call it. Like, he could raise the dead but it was only temporary (usually), long enough to talk to them for a little while which he figured served as the divination part so yeah, necromancy. Sort of. It wasn't like there was some expert he could visit to confirm it after all, and even if there was, what good would it do? Yeah, yeah: you can raise the dead, now go frolic into the sunset and resurrect your lost love or some shit like that.

_Wish it was that easy_, Alfred thought bitterly as he came to a halt back where he started, that was standing above the corpse of a murdered librarian. _Heh, looks like you fined someone one too many times._...Okay, that was cruel; that was one of the bad thoughts. He couldn't help it sometimes: these cruel things just floated into his head without prompting: little dark butterflies he tried so hard to suppress. He guessed it was an after-effect from being in contact with the dead so often; more often than not their thoughts drifted into his own and more often than not, the dead were bitter.

He wondered if Arthur Kirkland would be particularly bitter if he were to bring him back. He didn't look like he would; he looked almost…peaceful in fact, just like every other Artisan victim before him. So it was a particularly adept copycat then. Alfred frowned suddenly. Maybe it was an idea to try the resurrection thing just this once. This killer could actually know something and if they could catch them in time, maybe they might just be able to figure out the Artisan's pattern.

Okay, add to to-do list: revive stuffy librarian at some point in the future.

* * *

**Comments and con-crit are much appreciated, next chapter should be up soon ^-^**


	3. Do The Resurrection Thing Part 1

He was actually a lot prettier when he was out of the stuffy sweaters.

...Which truthfully wasn't something Alfred ever figured he'd find himself thinking about a corpse. But what else was he to think about – oh, hey, nice bruises? Your complexion is amazing; any tips? Probably better just thinking about the pretty thing.

But it was a lot easier now to see why their killer had picked Arthur Kirkland now that he was free of both blood and unflattering clothing. He had sharp angular features, kinda putting Alfred in mind of all those ancient paintings of nobility Mattie had once dragged him to see, and wow, _eyebrows_. Skinny as well, truthfully a little malnourished looking (though maybe some of that could be accounted to post-death shrinkage or whatever it was called – he couldn't remember). Meh. Either way, he still looked like he could do with a burger or two.

Alfred frowned, moving around the table to get a better angle at the body. He just didn't look real, didn't look like the person who apparently slotted into the biography he had just spent the entire night reading (he was a slow reader, okay). That had been the story of a boy brought up through turbulence - mother divorced and remarried three times with a child to each husband and family spread across the continent. Had never known his father, been dragged from pillar to post with his restless mother, and boy, had the results shown. A tragedy of drink, drugs and bad decisions was spattered across those pages; it seemed he'd barely managed to pull himself together in time for exams. Alfred was Officially Impressed now, okay. Who would have figured library boy had it in him?

Which was exactly why he couldn't reconcile that image of a tearaway young punk with this stiff regal corpse. It was just. ..empty; _wrong._

The fact that correcting that wrongness might have short term benefits to their investigating as well didn't escape his notice.

"Al,"

What did he smell like beneath that clinical of chemicals and disinfectant? Already he was trying to project scents onto him, working them into the jigsaw of Kirkland's present and past; an osmological piece of art work of his own creation. He could imagine the faint smell of tea clinging to the blond - not that flavoured stuff, but traditional tea; Earl Grey or some shit like that -and overlapping would be the scent of fresh paper interwoven with old. There'd probably be something floral in there as well, not so obvious as to be identifiable.

...Did he look like the sort to wear cologne?

_"Al."_

With a jerk, it was back to the land of the living, where the reek of disinfectant was still doing its job of masking the stench of blood and Mattie was standing across from him looking exasperated. It was dark, Alfred realised; just how long had it been anyway?

"Long enough."

"Keep out of my head," Alfred muttered, tugging the sheet back up over Kirkland and nudging the chill cabinet closed. As cool as Matt's particular talent was (much cooler than dicking around with corpses in Al's opinion), he'd much rather it was kept away from certain...aspects of his mind. Like the aspect that had just spent the last five minutes _fantasising_ over a fucking dead man's _scent._

It sounded super creepy when he put it like that; like he was some sort of pervert or something. He wasn't; he just had a highly active imagination.

"I wasn't in your head," Matthew crept past him to pull the drawer open once again, studying the body there with a frown. "You did ask for permission, yeah?"

Alfred froze. "Uh…course?"

"_Alfred!_ You said you'd stop doing this!"

"Yeah, well…" He scratched his head nervously; it wasn't like he had come down here with the intention of doing his…resurrection thing. He never came down here with the intention of doing it – it always ended up just sort of happening and then he was getting torn a new one for not '_informing his superiors of his intentions_", and "_for god's sake, Jones; do you ever think of the ethics behind all this?"_

...Well, _sometimes_ he did. Occasionally. Okay; rarely but he barely revived anyone anymore, not after all that shit with...No. He was not delving back into that Pandora's Box of horrors; that was a mistake that was never going to happen again and this time would be no exception. He may not have the right ethics but that didn't mean they weren't still there in some form, albeit buried.

"Look, it'll be fine; 15 minutes at the most! I just wanna ask him a few questions - you know, the usual. Did you see your attacker; can you give us a description etc etc. And once it's done, it's not like there's much they can do! "

Matthew let out sigh no. 7: _this is why we can't have nice things._ It was reinforced with statement 19; "This is the exact reason you lost your job back home."

Face schooled into petulant expectation, Alfred braced himself for the forthcoming lecture (one he had heard several times over at this point). Surprisingly, it never arrived. He looked up; Mattie was watching him patiently, waiting for the penny to drop.

"You're not gonna chew me out?"

"Don't see the point. You never learn anyway."

"Uh..." He looked back down at Arthur Kirkland's body, at the pale foot visible just past the sheet. Mattie had pulled him back out and was not watching Alfred expectantly: "Go on; I already took the liberty of telling them what you were going to do."

Alfred's gaze was reproachful; so the little shit _had_ been in his head then (fucking telepaths man). He wasn't denying however that he kinda wanted to, had been wanting to from the word go. He wanted to see the man add he was in life; it was amazing what you could learn just from watching someone.

...And award for crappiest excuse goes to.

"Fine, okay; I'll do it then. Seeing as you're so adamant and all." He flashed a grin at his brother; Mattie accepted it with only a small eye roll.

"10 minutes," he warned. "That's all you've got.

Huh: he was still enforcing that rule? It had been months now; come on! Alfred was reasonably certain he could now be trusted to not go completely off the rails, flip his shit and attempt mass resurrection. It was once, okay, once. And it had only been after all that crap with Antonio had gone down; you couldn't exactly blame him for being a little out of whack after that.

_~10 minutes. I'm not joking._

_~Yeah, yeah; serious business, now stop violating my mental privacy._

Matthew retreated with a frown, moved back even further when he saw Alfred wrap a hand around that one pale ankle. He didn't, however make any further comment - a relief - so Alfred saw fit to do as he did best.

He meddled.

* * *

**Going to be moving to the weekly update schedule now, seeing as it's currently taking me around a week to write and edit each chapter ^-^**

**reviews and concrit are much appreciated; thank you to everyone who's already supported this story**


	4. Do The Resurrection Thing Part 2

**First of all I apologise for how long it has taken me to get this chapter uploaded: prelim season has just ended and exams start in like a month. With any luck though, the next chapter should be up quicker!**

**Secondly, thanks to everyone who's supported this story so far.**

**And lastly, I'm changing the title to Match Box. Tinder Dust: just a heads up in advance ^-^**

* * *

It was a lot like fishing, only for a very specific fish rather than whatever he could catch, not to mention the fish was actually intangible and technically non-existent so in reality, it was nothing like fishing. But hey, fishing was a great metaphor. The process was exactly the same. See, first he had to cast out the line, which entailed touching some part of the corpse (did that make it the bait?). Sometimes it didn't work and he was forcibly ejected from the pond; other times, the 'fish' was too far away to notice or be snagged by the hook - it all depended on the influencing factors, which he had determined to be time, nature and place of death (also, Alfred had a feeling that his own attitude and wellbeing may perhaps factor as well but he'd never tested it), and if there was the slightest discrepancy between optimal and current conditions, it was more likely than not that something would go wrong. (Like pulling back the wrong spirit, bringing back the murderer instead of the victim). But hey, you see? He had it all worked out. It was fishing.

Resurrection was a very precise science and Alfred wouldn't hear anyone say otherwise.

Mattie knew better than to interrupt him at this point, instead silently observing using his weird mind voyeur thing (he liked the appearance of the spirits; watching them, he said, was calming). He did occasionally have to suppress a comment - the link went both ways; errant thoughts kept drifting into Alfred's own mind - but on the most part, it was like having some creepy silent guardian peering over his shoulder.

Alfred brought his attention back to the line, which was tugging insistently. The motion was more thoughtful than anything; perhaps even with a degree of intentional malice which was confirmed when he gave it a retaliating wrench. The thread was immediately pulled back even more forcibly; so much so that Alfred felt like his very soul itself was being sucked after it. Fuck, what was this guy's problem? They were usually happy to come back.

Matthew let out a discontent hum and whether it was physical or mental, Alfred couldn't tell. But he couldn't release it, not this far in. He was not being bested by a goddamn ghost! He pulled again, working his mental hooks into this ghost, working them this way and that until they were firmly lodged with no chance of coming loose within the next while.

The noise Mattie made this time was more of a hiss than anything; distantly Alfred could feel an elbow jab itself into his ribs, followed this time by his cousin's party piece.

"We are _**not **_going through this again; let go!"

Yada, yada; the usual fare. Been there, heard that, got like 50,000 t-shirts and the poster to boot. Besides, he had this in the bag. This asshole limey was coming back, like it or not.

Tug, pull, heave; by this point, he was at the mental equivalent of wrapping both hands around the rod and clinging on for dear life. And then in one smooth motion, the force at the other end lessened and wow, that there was the mental equivalent of flying backwards onto the banking to land flat on your ass with a fish flailing wildly on top of you.

He was vaguely aware of someone drawing in a harsh shaky breath above him in much the same manner that he was vaguely aware of the fact that fuck, he suddenly felt he could sleep for a week right now which was to say, it was a niggling thought on the very edges of his consciousness because currently the rest of him was focused on carrying the previous thought out.

Distantly, the even breaths began to dissolve into rapid uneven gasps; Mattie could be heard in the background spouting his calm Zen crap which quickly turned into a foot launched into Alfred's shin. So much for the pacifist approach.

"For the love of God," his cousin muttered, and then could be heard murmuring soothingly to someone else. "Hey, come on, you need to breath. Slow deep breaths, yeah? Just take it easy. .."

Another voice, raspy with disuse and something else (_asphyxiation as a result of strangulation, throat all bruised to kingdom come: would have hurt like a bitch to speak if he'd survived_) answered.

It said: "Please tell me I'm not in a morgue."

"Uh, we could call it a mortuary if you like," Alfred drawled from the floor. Things were beginning to settle back down; in retrospect that statement perhaps wasn't as well thought out as he'd have liked.

_**helpful Al; real fucking helpful.**_

The unknown other (for a given definition of unknown) was beginning to rapidly sink into what was sounding like a killer (hehheh,_ killer_) panic attack, and at long last it began to register with Alfred that this was A Very Bad Thing. Crap.

He lunged upwards and onto his feet in a movement that would have made his 10th grade football coach proud and then hey, oh wow, eyes. They were wider than he was expecting (he'd been thinking narrow eyes, all the better to shoot you down with), what he imagined would have been a clear multi-tone green in life except they were now clouded over with a weird film that he assumed was rot of some sort, yuck. The pupils were also incredibly dilated and he had been right, that was one bitch of a panic attack. Crap, double crap, triple to the power of thirteen crap. He hated when this happened.

Alfred grasped a hold of the vic's - _keep it impersonal; do not get attached _- shoulders, grip firm but not so tight that the other wouldn't be able to pull away - _it's like with an injured animal, okay? Take it slow_. "Hey, come on, you got to listen to us and chill else this all could go wrong. We got ten minutes; let's not waste 'em!"

Have you ever done that thing where you accidentally knock over a candle and without warning, the entire table cloth just goes up in flames like tinder? Okay, chances were you hadn't but you got the picture and that was what mattered. Alfred was kind of like that with words; they became matches in his mouth and he had the unfortunate tendency to strike them against whatever was at hand without considering what was about to be razed to the ground.

Sometimes he just didn't process things before saying them and it all came out without warning and he said the wrong thing; he always said the wrong thing.

Sometimes he really hated his runaway tongue.

Dulled emerald flashed up to meet his silver-blues; death hadn't lessened any of their acerbic quality.

"10 minutes. _10 fucking minutes._ I am fucking _dead_ and you're telling me I have 10 measly fucking minutes? You absolute sheep-shagging yankee tosser!"

"That was a lot of fucks," Alfred commented nervously, because what did you say to a furious possibly homicidal corpse who was fully aware he had nothing to lose?

Oh - flying dicks _on a __**stick**__._

Matthew was being very _very _nice about the entire matter. No _I told you so's_; no_ I warned you's_, not even so much as an exasperated eye roll. He merely sighed and went to look for ice (really, what sort of morgue didn't have ice?) with only the most passing gaze of repercussion.

With a wince, Alfred dabbed gently at his nose, noting distantly that his shirt sleeve was already soaked crimson: that was going to a bitch to get out. God, his nose better not be broken! It stung to touch, even the slightest of pressure bringing on delicate fireworks across his eyes: the deluge of blood and mucus currently showed no sign of abating.

The corpse on the other hand - _urgh, Al, discrimination towards the dead_ - showed no sign of remorse or indeed any emotion outside of his little bubble of sulk: he was currently hunched up in the opposite corner of the morgue showing decidedly more energy than someone of his status should be in possession of. Decidedly more mobility as well, and they were way past the ten minute mark at this stage and steamrolling their merry way onto and beyond twenty.

Alfred may have made a mistake. It wasn't a particularly big mistake he supposed and it was probably a mistake he could easily rectify: it was just it was a mistake he had never dealt with before and therefore one he wasn't sure _**how**_ to rectify. It wasn't like he could just go and Google 'how to send back tethered dead guys' and expect it to actually know what he was talking about, let alone return results of any relevance.

At this point, Al was pretty certain he had tethered the Kirkland guy to himself. It had been a spur of the moment reaction: there had been a fist coming towards his face, all he could think was how precarious his grip was on this particular fish, how he couldn't afford to lose potential information. Something had clicked as his nose had exploded into star bursts of agony, a door catch sliding into place and binding him to this cadaver, this stick up his ass limey.

...Crap, he was actually going to have to explain this now.

* * *

**Any comments would be much appreciated ^-^**


End file.
